AIANES (Theodore Nott) H.P AU

Chapter Twenty One

Xenia's album rests heavily in one of Olympia's arms, the dragonhide leather rough against the skin of her palm.

"Who are we hiding from again?" Draco might as well yell from behind the brick columns.

Olympia, who stands close to him, just shushes him, a hand going to cover his mouth as the cigarette in between her fingers nearly burns his forehead. The action causes her cousin's eyes to widen comically before he harshly slaps her hand away.

"Lower your voice, you great imbecile!" Olympia hisses into a whisper, not minding her stinging flesh nor apologising for almost marring his. "I swear he can smell us." She says, pulling her shoulders back and pressing her mother's album to her chest, as though afraid someone might come and steal it from her.

Draco rolls his eyes, peeking past the wall before returning to his original position. "Who?"

"James Potter." She says, copying her cousin's actions as the blonde steals the stick from within her grasp and takes a long drag out of it.

Draco looks appalled by her answer, watching Olympia glare at him from beneath her fluffy, white, ushanka hat.

"You pulled me behind a wall to avoid Potter's father?" His tone suggests incredulity and Olympia can't help but intensify her glare at his insinuation.

"No." She tries to defend herself through a white lie. "Smoking a fag was another reason, too." She shrugs, completely aware of her unrefined behaviour.

And while Draco is fully capable of understanding the purpose behind her actions, he can't help but play the fool and throw yet another jab, hoping to rile up his beloved kin.

"Why does it matter if he sees you? I doubt he'll approach you if my father is there." He nods his head towards the other end of the station where Apollo and his parents are talking at leisure while the Potters and their lot stand no more than two steps away from them.

Olympia huffs in exasperation, embarrassed at what the man who sired her has reduced her to. "I'm fairly certain James Potter would walk straight through Tartarus just to chat with me." The meaning behind that statement isn't as bitter in her tongue as it would've once been. "I doubt his dislike for Lucius Malfoy is enough to keep him dead in his tracks."

Draco doesn't argue on that one.

"What's the plan then?" He wonders, throwing the cigarette stub on the ground and putting it out with a step of his polished dress shoe. "Because I am not hiding behind a wall as though I am a beggar any longer."

"It's nearly eleven o'clock, the train will whistle one last time and we'll make a run for the inside." She answers after glancing at her substitute watch, eager to go back to Hogwarts and change the mentioned item for her regular one.

"This is ridiculous." The blonde sighs.

Of all the things in life that bother Olympia, Draco being right has to be the greatest of them all. This, she, truly is ridiculous — Having to hide behind bricks because she refuses to speak to James Potter and his family is unbefitting of her, of an heiress; She shouldn't have to sneak around, she should be capable of standing in the middle of the station while the masses open up for her.

Fortunately, she doesn't have to listen any longer to her cousin's complaints, especially as the clock strikes eleven and the train signals its departure.

"Now!" Olympia scrambles to grab her mother's album tight before grabbing Draco's hand on her own, dragging him through the hoard of witches and wizards before coming to a quick halt in front of her grandfather and the Malfoys.